Child illness (such as childhood cancers) can have a defining and significant impact on the well-being of the patients. This is not just limited to the physical health, but mental health as well. Children in these situations—who are usually bedridden and/or hospital bound—are typically isolated in that their daily interactions do not include the normal socialization with other children of the same age. This type of isolation can lead to a number of problems including depression and loss of education. This is not an entirely new problem; it is, in fact, quite well-known. And, there have been attempts to curb the problems—at least from an educational perspective.
Probably the most significant development is a cart developed at Vanderbilt University—called “Makerspace.” An example of the Makerspace 100 can be seen in FIG. 1. As shown, this cart 100 is a shared workstation. This cart is a mobile creation station—thanks to the casters 110—which includes two separate computers (i.e., a table 102 and desktop 104) which allows the children to gain access to educational materials. It also includes a three dimensional (3D) printer 106 and a number of drawers 108 for storage of education items (e.g., electronics). This allows the children full access to materials to help alleviate many of the educational boundaries imposed by hospitalization, and the totality of this system can be seen in the Dissertation of Gokul Krishnan, dated December 2015 from Vanderbilt University and hereby incorporated by reference.
While the Makerspace 100 is a step in the right direction, it remains incomplete. It does help hospital-bound children stay on the same educational curve as other healthy children, but it does not help alleviate any issues with socialization or isolation. Makerspace 100 is also lacking in that it does not provide any type of peer-based collaborative atmosphere to help motivate hospital-bound children.
Therefore, there is a need for a collaborative educational system and method to allow ill children to both socialized and learn.